From: [h--ps--r] at [crl.com] (Alan Silverman)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Lancet editorial
Date: 6 Dec 1995 12:07:26 -0800

The Lancet

Volume 346, Number 8985, November 11 1995

Editorial

Deglamorising cannabis

The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health. Yet this 
widely used substance is illegal just about everywhere. There have been 
numerous calls over the years for the legalisation, or at least 
decriminalisation, of soft drugs, among which cannabis remains the most 
popular with all social groups. In this highly contentious area, the 
Dutch attitude has been often mentioned as the voice of sanity. In the 
Netherlands, customers of coffeeshops can buy up to 30 g of cannabis for 
about 10 pounds ($15) although the drug is technically illegal. The shops 
are not allowed to advertise, or to sell cannabis to individuals aged 
under 16years.

Prominent among those currently calling for legislative reform - and going 
further by making constructive proposals - are police chiefs and city medical 
officers, people who know only too well that the existing policies in most 
countries are ineffective and unworkable. Meanwhile, politicians have largely 
remained silent, seemingly afraid of offending powerful segments of the 
electorate or merely of being perceived as weak in the face of rising crime 
figures. When the occasional politician raises her head above the parapet - 
as the British opposition MP Clare Short did recently in calling for a 
fresh debate on decriminalisation of cannabis- the response is tediously 
predictable: widespread condemnation from political colleagues and 
overwhelming support from those who have to cope with the end result of 
political inertia.

In the case of Ms Short, not only was she speedily reprimanded by the 
party leader, but also party officials claimed that their non-legalisation 
stance was entirely logical since legalisation of cannabis would "increase 
the supply, reduce the price, and increase the usage." According to a Home 
Office report earlier this year, the number of people taking cannabis has 
doubled in a decade - without any help from "liberal" measures. Perhaps 
the politicians' real fear was that freedom to use softdrugs would 
automatically progress to increased use of substances such as cocaine and 
heroin. If so, they must have overlooked the recent Dutch government review 
which pointed out that decriminalisation of possession of soft drugs has not 
led to a rise in the use of hard drugs.

If the Dutch approach is so successful, why are changes afoot in The Hague 
to tighten up that country's drug policy? First Amsterdam's mayor proposed 
closing down half the city's coffeeshops that sell cannabis, and in doing 
so he rejected a report by his health department in favour of legalisation 
of soft drugs. Then the Dutch government, which had made an election promise 
to legalise cannabis, last month issued a discussion paper which mirrored 
the Amsterdam plan. If, as expected, the Dutch parliament agrees the latest 
proposals, half the country's 4000 cannabis-selling coffee shops will close 
and the amount that can be sold to anindividual will be cut to 5 g. Since the 
government's own review provides no ammunition for such a change in policy, 
the real reason behind the new measures must lie elsewhere. One need look no 
further than the Netherlands' neighbours and co-signatories of the Schengen 
agreement, which introduced a border-free zone between the Netherlands, 
France, Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, and Belgium. When France,in particular, 
threatened to end the agreement, claiming that the Netherlands was the major 
supplier of Europe's drugs, some action had to be taken and the coffee shops 
became the scapegoat.  Leaving politics aside, where is the harm in 
decriminalising cannabis? There is none to the health of the consumers, 
and the criminal fraternity who depend for their succour on prohibition 
would hate it. But decriminalisation of possession does not go far enough 
in our view. That has to be accompanied by controls on source, distribution, 
and advertising, much as happens with tobacco. A system, in fact, remarkably 
close to the existing one in Dutch coffee shops.

Cannabis has become a political football, and one that governments 
continually duck. Like footballs, however, it bounces back. Sooner or 
later politicians will have to stop running scared and address the 
evidence: cannabis per se is not a hazard to society but driving it 
further underground may well be.

The Lancet

-- 
               *** It's time to end the needless suffering ***
          Americans for Compassionate Use = http://www.acu.org/~acu/
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                     [a--n] at [walstib.com]  [Alan Silverman]